Layers of haze and smoke by altitude (Suomi-NPP, daily)
What it measures. Measures how much haze and smoke is in the air at different altitudes, given as a vertical profile from the ground up to about 80 kilometers, at several light wavelengths.
How it's made. Retrieved daily from the OMPS Limb-Profiler on the Suomi-NPP satellite, which looks sideways through the atmosphere's edge to sense particles layer by layer.
How & where you'd use it. Used to study high-altitude aerosols, including volcanic and smoke layers in the stratosphere, and how they evolve and affect the ozone region.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2012-02-07 → ongoing
- Measured bySuomi-NPP (OMPS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- StatusACTIVE
What you can do with it
- Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
- Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
- Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description
The OMPS-NPP L2 LP Aerosol Extinction Vertical Profile swath daily 3slit (AER) product contains the retrieved aerosol extinction coefficients measured by the Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite (OMPS) Limb-Profiler (LP) sensor on the Suomi-NPP satellite. The AER product measures stratospheric aerosol abundance and evolution at 6 wavelengths (510, 600, 675, 745, 869 and 997 nm) to complement the OMPS LP measurements of stratospheric and mesospheric profile ozone. This product replaces the previous single wavelength 675 nm (AER675) product. Each granule contains data from the daylight portion of each orbit measured for a full day. Spatial coverage is global (-90 to 90 degrees latitude), and there are about 14.5 orbits per day each measuring three limb profiles spaced approximately 250 km in the cross-track direction. The profiles are measured from the ground up to about 80 km with a vertical resolution of the retrieved profiles of approximately 1.8 km. The files are written using the Hierarchical Data Format Version 5 or HDF5.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="OMPS_NPP_LP_L2_AER_DAILY",
version="2",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from GES_DISC Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Access the data via HTTPS. GET DATA
- Access the data via the OPeNDAP protocol. USE SERVICE API
- Use the Earthdata Search to find and retrieve data sets across multiple data centers. GET DATA
- README Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION